5 Grounding Techniques for Anxiety
Anxiety can make you feel untethered, unmoored, even unreal. The anxious mind tends to drift into the future, worrying about what could go wrong, or reliving past stressful situations over and over again. Grounding techniques help pull you back to the present moment, allowing you to disengage from distressing thoughts and reconnect with your senses and surroundings.
By turning your attention to the present, you can short-circuit the anxiety cycle and regain a sense of calm and control. The following five grounding techniques have been shown to be effective for managing anxiety symptoms in the moment. Give them a try the next time you're feeling stressed, overwhelmed, or panicky.
Technique #1: Deep Breathing
What it is: A purposeful breathing exercise to restore a normal respiratory rate.
Why it helps: When you're anxious, your breathing tends to become shallower and more rapid. Many people who are anxious tend to skip out on exhaling their breath, leading them to feel that they’re not getting enough air. Focusing on your exhale can help you to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which calms your heart rate and helps you feel relaxed.
How to do it:
Find a comfortable seated position.
Inhale slowly through your nose, letting your belly expand as you draw in air.
Pause briefly after the inhale.
Exhale slowly through pursed lips, expelling all the air from your lungs.
Repeat for 5-10 cycles of deep breathing, focusing on making your exhales longer than your inhales.
Technique #2: Sensory Grounding
What it is: An exercise that engages each of your five senses to bring awareness to your physical surroundings.
Why it helps: Paying close attention to the present moment through sights, sounds, smells, textures, and tastes prevents your mind from wandering off into anxious thoughts. It can also help you to feel present where you are: you might realize through this exercise that you haven’t taken the time to really notice where you are, or that it’s the first moment of the day where you’ve really felt “awake.”
How to do it:
Pause and look around you. Notice five things you can see. Name them silently or aloud.
Notice four things you can feel or touch. Pay attention to textures and temperatures.
Listen carefully. Notice three things you can hear in your environment.
Notice two things you can smell in the area around you.
Notice one thing you can taste (or imagine a familiar taste).
Technique #3: Muscle Tension and Release
What it is: A systematic tensing and relaxing of different muscle groups.
Why it helps: Physically releasing muscle tension can relieve mental tension and anxiety. It also brings focused awareness to your body. This can be especially helpful if you’re in a stressful environment where you need to deal with your stress quietly, such as at work. It can also be helpful if you’re dealing with anger or frustration, or even a fight response.
How to do it:
Start by tensing the muscles in your toes for 5-10 seconds. Scrunch them up tightly.
Release the tension in your toes, noticing the relaxation. Breathe deeply.
Move up to your calf muscles. Tense and hold, then release fully.
Continue tensing and releasing muscle groups like thighs, abs, arms, shoulders, face.
End with releasing all tension, breathing deeply as you let your whole body go limp.
Technique #4: Visualization
What it is: Creating a vivid mental picture of a calming, peaceful scene.
Why it helps: Visualization engages the mind and senses in a focused way, providing an "escape" from anxiety while also countering distorted threat perceptions. In EMDR, clients are often asked to come up with a safe place they can “return to” mentally - it could be a place from their memory or somewhere they make up. Coming up with a place that you can return to on a regular basis when stressed can be a helpful shortcut toward finding some calm in a difficult situation.
How to do it:
Find a comfortable position and start by doing some deep breathing.
Imagine a place that feels very calm and relaxing to you (beach, forest, bedroom).
Use all your senses to visualize the details: sights, sounds, smells, textures, etc.
If your mind wanders, gently bring it back to visualizing the soothing environment.
Stay immersed in this visualization for 5-10 minutes, allowing it to replace anxiety.
Technique #5: Grounding Statement
What it is: Reciting a personalized statement to counteract anxious thoughts.
Why it helps: Repeating grounding phrases interrupts spiraling negative thoughts and affirms your ability to cope with anxiety in a rational way. What’s most important here is that the statement should feel true. You want to repeat something that you can actually believe about yourself, even when you feel really challenged by what’s happening around you.
How to do it:
Prepare a brief grounding statement ahead of time that rings true for you.
When you notice anxious thoughts arising, say the statement aloud or internally.
Examples: "This anxiety will pass." "I can get through this." "I'm safe right now."
Keep repeating the statement slowly, adding a deep inhale between each iteration.
Visualize the words creating a wall around or pushing away the anxious thoughts.
Conclusion
No matter which technique you choose, the key is focusing intently on the present - not the worries of the past or future. With regular practice, grounding exercises can become powerful tools for managing anxiety and promoting relaxation when you need it most.
If you could benefit from having more support with anxiety, please feel free to reach out for a consultation.
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